


Stimulus

by MissLouisa



Series: the inside of my head is a very dark place [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sherlock is nosy, dark!john, pretend murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-03
Updated: 2012-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-04 19:11:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissLouisa/pseuds/MissLouisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock finds something John would rather he didn't.<br/>Sherlock is absolutely fascinated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stimulus

"I'm not in your book." Sherlock said, not looking up as John walked in. 

John raised an eyebrow. "My book?"

Sherlock lifted the object - a small, black book, held shut with an elastic band.

"Oh."

"I think I should be offended." Sherlock said, still not looking at John.

"Offended? Did you read it?"

"Of course." Sherlock would've rolled his eyes if John could see him - he was being painfully dull.

John waited. At some point Sherlock was going to say something that made sense and then he could resign himself to leaving the flat - possibly for good.

"You use some powerful descriptive language. I mean, some of it is a little florid, but that was too be expected from your embellishments on the blog. I presume your therapist suggested it?"

John nodded, short and sharp. He felt like the rug had been pulled out of him.

"So, why aren't I in it?" Sherlock asked. "Everybody else you've come into contact with - not even excluding members of your own family, I notice, and yet your flatmate does not even get a mention?"

"I thought you would need something... y'know. A bit special." John winced. "I was taking my time on it. Um." He tailed off. 

Sherlock grinned. He was... he was _flattered_ , John realised.

"So? How far have you got?"

John flinched. This was just another game to Sherlock, another social experiment.

"I'm not... it's supposed to be written down so I don't have to say it out loud, Sherlock. That's why it's therapy."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "You should fire your therapist. Now, tell me."

"Cocaine." John said.

"Boring!"

John smiled. "You didn't let me finish." He was taking a perverse pleasure in this - it was stupid, he knew, but there really wasn't any coming back from this.

"Cocaine. Just enough for you to put up the right kind of fight. Razorblades. I would carve wings into your shoulders."

"Wings?"

John ignored him. "You would be handcuffed. The ones you stole off Lestrade that you think I don't know about. I would shave off your hair. I imagine you'd look younger without all the curls."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, opened his mouth, but John continued. "I would carve patterns into your skull. I would have bought a collection of knives, especially."

"You would look into my eyes when I pin your arms to the wall. You'd probably look a bit like Jesus, only a lot less holy." John was lost in his own head now, trapped in a maze of things he wanted, needed, absolutely could not, do. "The gun would be the obvious choice, but it would happen at night and I wouldn't want to wake Mrs Hudson."

He paused, staring into the distance, imagining a bullet hole between Sherlock's glacier eyes.

"I would strangle you. I would wrap my hands around that throat and squeeze and you wouldn't be able to say a thing. I would be pressed close, close enough to feel your heart stop. That's what I need. I need to know that you're over, that you've been ended."

John blinked.

"Fascinating."

John swallowed.

"You could've taken the easy way out. You could've made it look like an accident."

John nodded, struck dumb by Sherlock's bland acceptance. Treating it as any other slightly unusual behaviour - as if he were Molly, wearing lipstick.

"You didn't. You want to make a picture, a crime scene. You want somebody to die in your image."

John flinched.

"I don't... I don't want to think these things, Sherlock. It's horrible. It scares me."

Sherlock nodded.

"Perhaps the therapist didn't have the wrong idea, after all. You clearly have PTSD. It is safer you think these thoughts than those you may actually act on."

"You're a fucking mind reader, now?" 

"I'd rather you stayed alive, John. I find you... useful."

John breathed.

"You know. You've known the whole time, haven't you?"

Sherlock inclined his head. "It was one of the things I had hoped to fix, like the limp."

John raised an eyebrow.

"I hope that your mental state continues to improve." Offered Sherlock. He had often been on the recieving end of such platitudes - withdrawal was such a _pain_ \- and he was floundering, somewhat, for what to say. Because there was so much new information and he couldn't process it if John continued to stand there waiting for Sherlock to be angry with him.

"Th-thank you." 

John turned, and left the room, leaving Sherlock to consider exactly how dangerous John could be, if provided with the right stimulus.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an unbeta'd prequel to Little Black Book. Um. Feedback welcome and all that.


End file.
